Short term consultant world bank

By Jon Sindreu The Wall Street Journal Fri., Nov. 23, 2018 Investment banks have made a nice little money-spinner out of a once broken trading strategy: The repo. But now that the secret is out, it risks losing its force. Repo desk revenues at the top-12 investment banks grew 21% between 2015 and 2017, data by research firm Coalition shows, even as overall income fell 6%. Traders say they’ve become highly profitable, too. Repos, or repurchase agreements, are an integral part of the world’s financial plumbing, allowing investors and banks to borrow large amounts of short-term cash by selling a security and pledging to buy it back at a slightly higher price in the near future. On the other side of the trade, asset managers get access to the securities they want—often, ultrasafe government bonds. In 2008, fears about the quality of some of these assets led the whole repo market to freeze, worsening the broader financial crash. Global regulations then … [Read more...] about Investment banks’ secret cash cow

LONDON: Britain is expected to keep the door open for European Union banks and investors after Brexit to try to preserve London's global financial clout, irrespective of whether it gets a good trade deal from the bloc, bankers and industry officials say.Nerves in the City of London financial district were rattled last month when the UK government proposed future financial services trade with the EU based on "reciprocal" arrangements.Bankers worried this meant that if the EU did not give Britain broad market access, London would impose tit-for-tat restrictions on EU banks or even tighten up treatment of all foreign lenders."But the Treasury later told us it does not mean that. Reciprocity would make the City very nervous," a senior international banker in London said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.The Treasury had no immediate comment on Tuesday.At stake is one of the most liberal and lucrative financial services trade regimes in the world."The … [Read more...] about Britain can’t afford to close door to EU banks after Brexit

It started off as a fintech ant and now strides the China landscape like an online colossus. In the space of three years, Ant Financial has become a major player in the world’s second-largest economy. Last week, the affiliate of the sprawling e-commerce giant Alibaba raised an incredible US$14 billion in a single round of investment, valuing the group at about $150 billion. This dwarfed the $4.5 billion funding it tapped into back in 2016. “The company will continue to invest in developing its blockchain, AI [artificial intelligence], security, Internet of Things and computing capabilities to upgrade its global technology platform,” Eric Jing, the company’s chief executive officer, said. Part of Ant’s attraction is its subsidiary Alipay, the online mobile payment platform, which has 870 million active users with 600 million in China and 270 million in the rest of the world. Figures released showed that the group recorded a 65% jump in profits for the … [Read more...] about Ant trail leads to riches in China’s fintech world

NATHAN, Australia: The Chinese government has appointed a new head of its central bank. Yi Gang, who was the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, takes over leadership of the central bank from Zhou Xiaochuan, who had been in the position since 2002.As China’s central bank oversees the stability of the world’s second-largest economy and the world’s largest pile of foreign reserves, this is a change the global economy is watching closely.A US-trained economist, Yi received his doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois in 1986. He was a professor at Peking University in China following various academic positions in the US, before joining China’s central bank in 1997.Yi is known in academia for his expertise on inflation and price instability.Yi developed his technocratic career exclusively within the headquarters of the central bank, taking up various leading positions in areas of monetary policy, exchange rate policy, and … [Read more...] about Commentary: China’s new central bank governor must grapple with an ambitious economic agenda

A bloodbath gripped the crypto markets this week, with virtually every single major cryptocurrency taking significant losses, but huge amounts of excitement remains about the space from all corners of society. Bitcoin, the first, biggest, and most recognisable cryptocurrency, has been at the heart of much of that excitement, with acolytes touting it as the future of global finance, and some even suggesting that it could replace fiat currencies like the dollar and the pound. Bitcoin’s rise has been so rapid and so aggressive that the market’s more established institutions and figures have been simply unable to ignore it. There is a big spread of opinion across the sector, with some seeing cryptocurrencies as a possible driver of a fundamental shift in the global financial system, others disliking bitcoin, but having some faith in the blockchain technology that underlines it, and others just seeing crypto as, basically, a complete waste of time. To find … [Read more...] about What 12 major analysts from banks like Goldman, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley think of bitcoin